THE REPUBLIC v. THE HIGH COURT, TEMA EX PARTE: THE VESSEL MT ROSE & ORS

MAJORITY OPINION

PWAMANG, JSC:

My Lords, before us is an application for a review of the decision of the ordinary bench of the Court dated 2nd December, 2025, which, in the exercise of the Supervisory Jurisdiction of the Court under article 132 of the Constitution, 1992, quashed by order of certiorari a ruling of the High Court Tema whereby it made an ex parte order for the Arrest of a Ship. The ruling of the High Court was given on 5th September, 2024 and the application to the Supreme Court for it to be quashed under article 132 was filed on 23rd July, 2025. It was thus after about 10 months of the decision that the applicants/respondents before us (to be referred to as “the respondents”) applied to invoke the Supervisory Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.

Ordinarily, the Supreme Court would not entertain an application under its Supervisory Jurisdiction when the application has not been filed within 90 days of the impugned decision in compliance with Rule 62 of the Rules of the Supreme Court, 1996 (C.I.16) as amended by C.I.24. However, in line with precedent in this court, if the court takes the view that an impugned decision is a nullity, the court would waive the time limitation and quash the decision. Accordingly, despite the fact that the application before the ordinary bench was filed out of time, they took the view that the High Court acted without jurisdiction so its decision was a nullity and consequently they quashed it.

In this review application, it is the case of the interested party/applicant (to be referred to as “the applicant”) that the view of the ordinary bench that the High Court acted without jurisdiction is fundamentally erroneous and the review bench ought to correct that error.

The case of Quartey v Central Services Co. Ltd. [1996-97] SCGLR 398, is one of the earliest cases in which the Supreme Court explained the scope of its review jurisdiction conferred by article 133 of the Constitution, 1992. The Court therein explained as follows:

*A review jurisdiction is a special jurisdiction and not an Appellate jurisdiction, conferred on the court, and the court would exercise that special jurisdiction in favour of an Applicant only in exceptional circumstances. This implies that such an applicant should satisfy the court that there has been **some fundamental or basic error which the court inadvertently committed in the course of considering it’s judgment and which fundamental error h